Answering the Call
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) came to Selma in 1965 to organize a voter registration campaign, Alice and Lonzy West made a decision that would define the rest of their lives. They opened their home. In a city where cooperation with civil rights workers could bring violence, economic retaliation, and harassment, this was not a small act. It was an act of profound moral courage rooted in their Catholic faith and their conviction that justice demanded action.
Alice West later described this decision in her own words, recorded in the Civil Rights Movement Veterans Archive: "In 1965, after Dr. King, SCLC, and SNCC came to Selma, my husband, my family, and I made our home welcome to all 'outside agitators' as they were called." The quotation marks around "outside agitators" are her own — a pointed acknowledgment of the language used by segregationists to delegitimize the movement.
Alice Martin West — civil rights foot soldier, Selma, Alabama
WSFA News, 2023
George Washington Carver Homes — Alice West's home and the center of the 1965 campaign
Alabama Department of Archives
Bloody Sunday — A Witness in Her Own Backyard
Alabama state troopers attack marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge — Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965
AP/Wide World Photos — public domain
On March 7, 1965, Alice West was a witness to one of the most violent and consequential moments in American history. Six hundred marchers set out from Brown Chapel AME Church — which stood directly behind the Carver Homes where Alice and her family lived — to march to Montgomery to demand voting rights.
At the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by Alabama state troopers and a mounted posse who attacked them with clubs, tear gas, and horses. The images broadcast on national television that evening shocked the nation and galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act.
"I would like to tell you what a day like 'Bloody Sunday' was, and how it affected me and my family. The mass meeting at Brown Chapel, the National Guard almost in my back yard behind Brown Church, and finally the peaceful march and climax ending in Mrs. Liuzzo's death."— Alice Martin West, CRMVET Archive
The Selma to Montgomery March
After two failed attempts — Bloody Sunday on March 7 and a second attempt on March 9 — the Selma to Montgomery March finally completed on March 21–25, 1965, under federal protection ordered by President Johnson. More than 25,000 people walked the final leg from St. Jude's Catholic School in Montgomery to the Alabama State Capitol.
Alice and Lonzy West were among those marchers. The photograph below — showing them smiling, arm in arm, surrounded by the crowd — is one of the most powerful personal documents of the movement. It shows not the famous faces but the true foundation: the ordinary people of Selma who risked everything for the right to vote.
The Selma to Montgomery March, 1965 — 25,000 marchers on the final day
Historical photograph, 1965
"Lonzy West & Mrs. Alice M. West at last leg of Selma – Montgomery March" — March 25, 1965. This photograph is a primary historical document.
Family photograph — provided by the West family
Voter Registration — 300+ People
Alice West's most sustained civil rights contribution was her voter registration work. In the months and years following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, she personally assisted more than 300 people in registering to vote in Dallas County, Alabama.
To understand the significance of this number, one must understand the context: in 1965, before the Voting Rights Act, fewer than 335 of Dallas County's 15,000 eligible Black voters were registered. The barriers were not merely bureaucratic — they were enforced by economic terror, physical violence, and the constant threat of retaliation. To help someone register to vote was to help them claim their citizenship at genuine personal risk.
Her husband Lonzy West had himself been subjected to the discriminatory voter registration tests documented by the New York Times in January 1965 — tests designed to fail Black applicants regardless of their actual literacy or civic knowledge. The personal experience of that injustice fueled both of their commitments to the registration work.
Before 1965: fewer than 335 of 15,000 eligible Black voters in Dallas County were registered. Alice West's 300+ registrations represented a near-doubling of the Black electorate she personally touched.
Alice Martin West — announcement of her passing, March 3, 2023
Jonathan Daniels — The Martyr Who Lived in Their Home
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was a 26-year-old white Episcopal seminary student from Keene, New Hampshire, who watched the Bloody Sunday footage on television and felt called to go to Selma. He arrived in March 1965 and, when he missed the bus back to seminary, found himself stranded in Selma with nowhere to stay.
Alice and Lonzy West took him in. He lived with their family in the Carver Homes for months — eating at their table, playing with their children, worshipping with them at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church, and working alongside them in the movement. Alice's daughter Rachel West Nelson later recalled that he became "part of the family."
On August 20, 1965, Jonathan Daniels was shot and killed in Hayneville, Alabama, while shielding 17-year-old Ruby Sales from a shotgun blast fired by Tom Coleman, a special deputy. He was 26 years old. He died instantly. Ruby Sales survived.
"Jon Daniels was a part of my family, we all loved him and trusted him. He taught my family all about the wonders of God's love. His death took a toll on my family as well as all the Black people in Selma, AL."— Alice Martin West
Jonathan Myrick Daniels (1939–1965) — Episcopal seminary student who lived with the West family in Selma
Episcopal Church Archives — public domain
Jonathan Daniels is recognized as a martyr by the Episcopal Church. His feast day is August 14. The child development center Alice West co-founded was later renamed the Jonathan Daniels Daycare Center in his honor.
"He came to our house and he stayed with us... He was just like one of the family. He ate with us, he slept with us, he did everything with us."
Washington University — Eyes on the Prize Archive
Catholic sisters and clergy marching in Selma, 1965 — Alice West's church community was at the center of the movement
Historical photograph, 1965
The Catholic Community in the Movement
The Catholic community in Selma — centered at Our Lady Queen of Peace, Alice West's parish — was deeply embedded in the civil rights movement. The Edmundite priests and sisters who served the parish were among the most visible Catholic voices for civil rights in the South.
Catholic sisters from across the country came to Selma to march. The Sisters of St. Joseph, whose Selma collection is archived at the Sisters of St. Joseph Archive in Rochester, NY, documented their service during the 1965 campaign. Alice West's parish was the spiritual home of this Catholic witness.
Congressional Gold Medal — Selma Foot Soldiers
On March 7, 2015 — the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday — President Barack Obama signed Public Law 114-5, authorizing the Congressional Gold Medal to be awarded to the foot soldiers of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Marches. Alice Martin West was among those honored.
The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow. It has been awarded to figures including George Washington, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks. Alice West's inclusion among the Selma Foot Soldiers places her in this company of history.
"To award the Congressional Gold Medal, collectively, to the foot soldiers who marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 to protest the systematic denial of voting rights to African Americans in Alabama."
Civil Rights Freedom Wall
Alice West and Lonzy West are both listed on the Civil Rights Freedom Wall at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma — the church that served as the command center of the 1965 campaign and stands adjacent to the Carver Homes where they lived. Their names are inscribed alongside those of the other foot soldiers of the movement.
UNT Digital Library — Civil Rights Freedom Wall